


This is the Poem of the Air

by azulaahai



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate title: WINTER II: This Time it's Personal, Angst and Fluff, Children, F/M, Healing, I continue to be obsessed with the idea of them naming their daughter Lyanna, I guess canon divergent, I have not written fic in a long time okay I've forgotten how to tag things, Marriage, Post-Canon, they're king and queen in the north and married okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:22:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29568156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azulaahai/pseuds/azulaahai
Summary: Sansa knows what is coming. She has tasted it in the frostbite, smelled it in the smoke from the hearth, felt the weight of fur where not long ago wool was more than enough.Winter, again.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 72





	This is the Poem of the Air

**Author's Note:**

> dkjlsdghkjsdhgkjhsfkjg. I haven't written fic for a really long time (which I say every time, I know, but this time it's at least somewhat true!) A lot going on etc etc. But I read this poem and had this idea and here it is. Not sure if it's angsty fluff or fluffy angst, but hey. I put some words in a document. That's the bar I'm setting for myself rn
> 
> *Please note: the title and the italicized bits are the poem "Snow-flakes" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, found [here](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44649/snow-flakes/) in its entirety.

_Out of the bosom of the Air,_

_Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,_

_Over the woodlands brown and bare,_

_Over the harvest-fields forsaken,_

_Silent, and soft, and slow_

_Descends the snow.*_

Sansa knows what is coming. She has tasted it in the frostbite, smelled it in the smoke from the hearth, felt the weight of fur where not long ago wool was more than enough.

Winter, again.

Summer snow, not so uncommon here, is gravely different from the snows that whisper of winter. The former is playful and has a hint of divinity to it: there’s a breathtaking beauty to standing atop the battlements, looking out at the myriad of snowflakes slowly conquering her land. Summer snow is her smoothening a snowball in her gloved hands and hooting with laughter as it hits Jon in the back. Summer snow is competing with her daughter about who can catch the most snowflakes on their tongue. Summer snow is snowflakes in her lashes that Jon strokes away gently. 

Winter snow is silent. It creeps up on you with sinister precision: the shift from beauty to danger is not always apparent. Soon you see nothing but white mist, feel no parts of your body exposed to the air, hear nothing but the subdued screaming of the snow. The idea is a tightening corset around Sansa’s torso. The Long Winter still hangs so heavy a cloud over her court, over her land, over her family. She clings to Maester Sam’s reports, that this one will be milder, will be brighter, will be nowhere near as desperate.

She knows it has been bothering Jon as well. The cold makes his scars strain, and he grimaces in pain when he thinks she is not looking. And always, the memories, far easier to keep in check in summer sun and merry feasts, than in the wary rationing of late autumn and the increasingly severe storms of snow.

* * *

It will be their daughter’s first winter. Lyanna, not yet seven, was born at the height of summer, in a day that would be considered on the chilly side in the South but up here was named ”boiling hot”. The girl, fearless and freckled, asks anyone she can come by about the coming winter, eager to hear the horror stories of the snow and the wolves and the Others. Sansa does her best to tell a gentle sort of truth.

Their son is nearing manhood now with frightening speed, thirteen only a fortnight past. Edd saw the last of the Long Winter as a babe. With amusing conviction, he has taken this to mean he is an expert on preparations for the winter, shadowing both her and Jon with steadfast dedication and arguing fiercely about the proper way of handling rations and storage. His father, with a patience that sometimes surprises Sansa, teaches him subtly. 

There are days when their eyes lock, across the courtyard, or the dining table, or even in their chambers, and Sansa can see her fear in Jon’s eyes and feel his pain coarse through her veins. To know that these are scars they share is a bittersweet pleasure. 

Like last winter, Sansa is, surprisingly, breathtakingly, not alone. 

_Even as our cloudy fancies take_

_Suddenly shape in some divine expression,_

_Even as the troubled heart doth make_

_In the white countenance confession,_

_The troubled sky reveals_

_The grief it feels.*_

”Any day now.”

Jon strokes her naked back, thoughtful thumb tracing her spine. He is staring into the hearth, eyes glazed over, as if he has not said anything at all. Sansa does not respond, surveying him under heavy eyelids. He has a face suited for firelight: strong, stubborn lines and glimmering grey eyes. She traces the curve of his chest with her hands, marveling at his warmth against the cool of her fingers.

These are some of her favorite moments. 

She collects them like stars, bewildered and thankful that their existence lines up with hers.

”Are we ready?” she asks. She knows the answer, but she wants to hear him say it.

”I believe we are”, he says, and finally meets her eye.

* * *

When Sansa was very young, long before Robert Baratheon came north, her pony threw her while they trotted across the courtyard. She was never a fond rider, and having fallen and hurt her wrist, she vowed never to mount a horse again. Robb managed to get her back in the saddle only a fortnight later, but she spent the whole time clinging desperately to the pony’s mane, with clenched jaws and wide eyes. 

She could not stop imagining it: the fall through the air, the pain of the impact. Each subsequent ride was the same terror. Until, that was, a month or so later, when a sudden noise spooked the pony and she once again fell off, landing softly in the courtyard mud (ruining her dress, though that did not upset her until later). She barely registered the fall - one moment she was in the saddle, the other sitting in the dirt, unharmed. 

It was this second fall that cured Sansa’s fear of riding. 

The final part of overcoming: not only climbing back in the saddle, but being brave enough to fall again, knowing you’ll rise again this time too.

_This is the poem of the air,_

_Slowly in silent syllables recorded;_

_This is the secret of despair,_

_Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,_

_Now whispered and revealed_

_To wood and field.*_

Dawn, or just after. Sansa walks the walls of Winterfell, watching the sun and the snow battle for dominance over the morning, when a small shadow grows in the sky above her. She halts her walking. Stares up into the asymmetric falling of snowflakes, the struggling sun blinding her for a brief moment. 

She knows what is approaching before she regains her sight. 

She is a Stark, after all. 

She knows what is coming, feels it in her very being.

In the falling snow, a white raven is flying towards her.

Winter is here once more.


End file.
